


La Guaracha

by FranklyFrazzled



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-02
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-28 05:11:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/988076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FranklyFrazzled/pseuds/FranklyFrazzled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If love were an experiment, he would be the steady controlled group with the predictable result. It’s Xabi who is the catalyst. The unpredictable one. It’s Xabi who seems like he’s missing a heart altogether.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Guaracha

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this on and off for years. It's morphed and changed so much and I have no idea how I feel about it other than so utterly glad to finally have it in a place where I feel okay posting it. I hope it turned out okay!

  
Here’s the thing: he’s kind of perfect. He’s attractive, well groomed without imposing on femininity, caring, well-informed, sweet, and above all else- utterly charming. He has his out-ward humility without being self-depreciating. He can hold a conversation about anything ranging from Bach to silly teen-age pop culture, to surrealists, and then back again to Joy Division. He has no visible flaws. He’s a man who can blend and stand-out, but more importantly be and do whatever is necessary in the given circumstance.  
  
Women swoon.  
  
But he’s not actually perfect. Far from it. He is who he has to be on the outside: who he was raised to be. But with education comes free thought and contemplation. With that comes dangerous ideas, of which he has many. He knows who he is expected to be: the ideal man he has spent the last twenty or so years of his life striving to become. However, he also knows that there is a large gap between who he is supposed to be and who he wishes to be.  
  
Behind the calm, cool exterior awaits the animal within: ferocious and unyielding. He’s coarse, violent, sexual, and a great deal of other things he should not really be.  
  
He’s a pacifist by ideology. People would expect nothing else from him. He believes in peace and the horrors of violence. He’s against war. However, that doesn’t stop the attraction. It doesn’t cut off the allure of fists and of metallic blood on his tongue. He’s a fighter by passion. It’s ingrained in him to rebel. The only problem is that he _is_ a pacifist: he’s too intelligent to allow his basic instincts to run their courses. (Even though he also believes primal human instincts should be celebrated, not tucked away as embarrassing little secrets in the depth of the subconscious. It can’t be healthy. Can’t be.)  
  
He’s not the type of man to have sex with his clothe on. He finds it crude. He doesn’t like to do anything unless he does it right. He doesn’t particularly enjoy sex. (Beyond basic lust fulfilled and an average functioning male libido.) He doesn’t like not being in control of his own pleasure or being put in charge of the needs of another. It’s more stress than it’s worth most nights. He doesn’t masturbate either. (He understands the impulses to do so, the desire, the _basic human instinct_ , still he doesn’t dare.)  
  
He understands who he was raised to be, who is essentially is. But he also understands (despite never realizing) who he truly wants to be. The problem- as it always seems to be- is putting two and two together. Mixing nature versus nurture to create the whole man.  
  
That’s where Steven comes in- A force of nature in a white button down, sleeves rolled midway up his arm, blood drying on the side of his lip. Disheveled and delicious. It always begins with a man like Steven- With trouble.  
  
\----------------------------------------

\---------------------------------------------------------

Steven is cool. Cool to the core: he knows, you know, he’s bound to score. He’s the epitome of a leather jacket and smokes without ever having to bother to put either on display. (He doesn’t even own a leather jacket, actually. They’re beyond expensive and he just doesn’t give a fuck.)

He’s cool but he’s not chill. He doesn’t do mellow- he does passion. The blood in his veins has always flowed a few degrees too hot. Sometimes he gets angry and starts a fight (and finishes one too). But sometimes, as well, he fucks- Hard, sweltering, out of this world- fucks. He likes to be in motion. He is not a sedentary man built for a sedentary life.

People like him. People are a little afraid of him. He knows when to smile, when to nod, when to give ‘em a hell of a glare. He knows how to control his face and body just _so_. Some people are drawn to him. Some are fucking terrified of it all.

Women do more than swoon. They drop their lace panties and never look back.

He lives his life and tells others to fuck off. Steven’s a good guy- really. He sends half his pay to the girl his brother knocked up years ago despite never having met the child. He does what he can but doesn’t like showing that side of himself off. He’s a private man in the most un-private way. He wears his heart on his sleeve like a mood ring. (But sometimes people misinterpret the colors on the decoder and fuck that, he doesn’t have time to explain.)

He’s hard and soft in all the right places. He’s cool. He’s got everything under control until he meets Xabi. Then. Well, then the shit hits the fan and Steven doesn’t know what he is anymore other than completely and totally fucked.

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They share an apartment. It just kind of happened. Just like they just happened to meet and just happened to continue to meet until it finally stuck and they decided to share an apartment. They’re not friends at first. Not really. They’re just acquaintances who need the same thing out of each other: companionship and cheaper rent.

The first time they met was under strained circumstances. Xabi was getting some air, avoiding the hordes of horrid people who called themselves humans in The Reception Hall. He was always getting invited to these kinds of get-togethers. The kind with black ties and fancy champagne. (He loves champagne. His one weakness.)

It was the curse of being his father’s favorite. (Or part of it, rather.) People invited him with the assumption that he was a younger, definitely more alive, version of his father. It was an embarrassing sight, watching his father’s former associates and friends make the same jokes to him that they would have made to his father with the desperate need on their faces that he would react the same. But he’s always been eager to please and he does what needs to be done to fill the role.

Sometimes it gets to be too much: The people, the ties, the constant loop of the same Sinatra songs being played subtly in the background of the milling guests. Sometimes he needs to escape before his very pristine reputation as his father’s son becomes damaged by a rage within himself he cannot control. (A part of him believes he takes these breaks in order to prevent from snapping and doing some irreparable damage to his name. The other part understands that he takes these breaks so he can continue to believe that he is human enough to snap in the first place.)

Over the years, he has gotten good at sneaking into back alleys without anyone noticing. Usually alleyways are empty, unlike the fronts of buildings which are home to the politic prophesying chain smokers with raspy voices and clammy hands. Alleyways have no companionship, rarely any light, and suit him just fine.

This particular night, however, the alley didn’t stay empty for long. He had just loosened the tie from around his neck (more like a high fashioned noose, he’d always mused- even he is allowed clichéd thoughts every now and again) when the door leading to the kitchen burst open in a flash of blinding light. He watched, in slight irritation at his pained retinas, as a man was quickly shoved out the door by the burly cook. The man was then punched in the face, a harsh jab from a meaty fist which resembled a cleaver more than a human hand, and shoved to the ground with angry shouts of a fate worse than death should the abused man ever show his face again.

Well. It was different. Xabi didn’t bother hiding the fact that he had been watching when the kitchen door soon slammed shut once again, so quickly that if the abused man hadn’t been left on the ground, he would have to question if anything had actually happened at all. The man, dressed in the server uniform from the inside function lazily pulled himself from off the ground with some kind of dangerous feline grace in his spine and rubbed his cheek; certainly there would be a bruise in the morning.

He never acknowledged Xabi sitting there until he took a seat on the ground next to him. In complete silence he pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and placed it in his mouth, dabbing away at the blood there as his hand made its way back into his pocket to find his lighter. They sat together in silence for a long time, neither of them bothering to make introductions or stupid explanations or commentary about what had just happened.

Steven never tells Xabi the perils of sleeping with your boss’s daughter. He also doesn’t mention the even greater danger of seducing your boss’s beloved nephew either. In return Xabi never explains how with just one look at Steven, he witnessed everything in himself which he could never express. Just one look and he was hooked on blue eyes and bloodied knuckles.

Before he got up to leave, cigarette finished and abandoned on the asphalt, Steven placed a slow and sweltering kiss on Xabi’s lips- leaving him a bit dazed and completely enamored with the idea of the stranger that had been put in front of him.

As for Steven and the reason for the kiss. Well, after all, he had a reputation to uphold.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They’re more similar than they would care to think in the beginning. For example, both of them prefer orange juice to apple, Liverpool to Everton, The Beatles to the Rolling Stones. Even their pasts have some parallels. Both of them left home at a young age- barely seventeen and out the door for each.

Steven claims he was a little shit and he wouldn’t have respected his father anymore if he had let him stay- had just put up with his behavior. If there’s one thing Steven can’t stand in a person it is being too fucking weak to stand up for themselves. Nothing makes him clench his fists and wish to cause pain more than someone unwilling to fix their own problems. He’s not bitter about having been kicked out. It’s just a thing that happened. On weekends he still goes over to have tea with his mum and dad- their relationship never better.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Steven woke up in the morning it was to blaring music coming out of the speakers of an old girlfriend’s sound system he had never bothered to return. The entire house vibrated slightly to the force of the noise, coercing him awake with a mixture of a suddenly pulsing bed and a gawd-awful-too-early-for-this racket.

_I’ll kill you all with a six barrel shooter shotgun. I’ll kill you all but I need you so._

He sneered at the new day, getting out of bed and plowing through the garment and trash covered floor to the doorway before even bothering to open his eyes. Pants and shirt somewhere in the mess on the ground, he went to the kitchen in nothing but his briefs. The music raged on in the background, this house continuing to shake at its might.

“Ste! Stevie, lad! The fuck is with the noise?” his father hollered from upstairs, banging on the staircase handrail. His shouts and furious clanging were only mere annoyances in the very back of Steven’s mind as he poured himself a bowl of Wheaties: The Breakfast of Champions. He would laugh at the ridiculousness of the claim if he wasn’t so exhausted or so fond of the cereal in the first place. (The kid in him always discreetly puffed out his chest- he _was_ a fucking champion indeed.) He hummed slightly to himself, about to take the first delicious bite when something smacked the spoon out of his hand.

He opened his eyes slowly, registering the lack of music and the red, heavy breathing face of his father.

“OUT! GET THE FOOK OUT OF ME HOUSE. I CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOUSE ANYMORE. GET THE FOOK OUT AND DON’T COME BACK UNTIL YOU’VE LEARNED SOME PROPER FOOKIN’ MANNERS!”

Steven blinked slowly, eyed the box of Wheaties on the table and then his panting, one push away from cardiac arrest father. There was still shaving cream on his cheek. He’d lost himself to the fury in the middle of getting ready for work. He would be late now and his boss would look down on him for having raised a son he couldn’t control. (Pathetic.) Steven grabbed the box off of the table and spooned a handful into his mouth on his way out the door. He wasn’t a bad guy, just unyielding. Better to leave the old man to some peace.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been left stranded by the road in his skivvies but it was the first home he’d been kicked out of. Over the next few years it wouldn’t be the last- each living situation somehow ending in somewhat of a similar predicament of shouting and sudden homelessness.

Let it be known, Steven Gerrard is not an easy man to live with and never has been.

_Son, Sunday’s sun never shone on me._

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Xabi doesn’t say much about why he left home. He just says that he did and he’s been in England ever since- hasn’t been back to Spain even once. He keeps the reason hidden away- the one blemish on his perfect persona. He doesn’t believe in letting people see his dirty laundry to the point he won’t even let them believe he has dirty laundry to begin with. He keeps up the act because the act protects him from thoughts he would rather not dwell upon.

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Xabi didn’t wake up because he never actually made it to bed the night before. He sat there, dazed expression on his face- a complete lack of comprehension of what was going on around him- all the hideous sobbing and wailing.(It was really just the usual early morning bustle but with a disturbingly morose twist.)

His mother sat down next to him, only her hand tentatively placed on his knee bringing him out of his revere. He looked into her red but concerned eyes and managed a smile: It would be alright. How could it not be alright if it was all for mamma?

“Mijo, te amo mucho. Estás mi mundo, mi cielo, y más pero cuando tu padre mató…”

_La La Lie…_

He was packed up before he could come to terms with it. His mother saw him off at the door, fighting off a fresh batch of tears. His brothers watched from the stairwell, Jontxu silently accusing him for looking so much like their father that he was no longer welcome in their home; Mikel sympathetic because it was difficult to go from being the favorite child to a pariah on their mother’s memories.

Xabi bore it all stoically well. He promised his mother with a hard kiss to her palm that when she saw him next he would have lived up to his father’s dreams, showing her she was already forgiven for packing him away.

_La La Lie…_

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When they first move in together, Steven remains distant. He knows what he wants. He knows what he always wants when he meets an attractive person. He wants them: in his bed, in the shower, splayed over the kitchen counter. But he also understands that he’s been kicked out of one too many apartment leases on account of deteriorating roommate relationship and his overactive, unchecked libido. He keeps his distance because he’d rather not be homeless the moment he decides to desire someone else. (Which there is no question- he will.) He creates a metaphysical barrier between them.

But something strange happens over the first few months. Steven stops wanting to only fuck the living daylights of out his handsome, Spanish companion. He starts to like the way Xabi spends hours making meticulous to-do lists for every aspect of his life (even writing in what he thought Steven would think were spontaneous decisions to get drunk with him on Wednesday nights). He begins to like the way Xabi keeps up such a pristine appearance at all times, even when he hasn’t slept more than seven hours in three days. He begins to like Xabi.

Steven is not as cold and heartless as he likes the world to think. He’s been in love before. He’s loved, he’s lost, and he’s gone through every pop music cliché about everything in-between. He’s normal when it comes to feelings of the heart. If love were an experiment, he would be the steady controlled group with the predictable result. It’s Xabi who is the catalyst. The unpredictable one. It’s Xabi who seems like he’s missing a heart altogether.

Xabi doesn’t do love. He doesn’t love his friends. He doesn’t love his lovers (the few and far between people he uses to satisfy his sex drive and nothing more). He would love his family but that wasn’t an option anymore, hadn’t been for years. So he scorns the word and plays with the hearts of those who gift him theirs just because it makes him feel powerful and because he can. He’s not a bad person, he just can’t control his own life so he decides to take control of something else instead.

The first time Xabi brought anyone home with him was after Steven had already fallen in love with him. The thing about Steven is that he is no pathetic damsel when it comes to matters of the heart. When Steven falls in love with something he can’t have he isn’t the type to mope around. He becomes angry. He goes out. He pisses off the wrong person and comes home with a few extra bruises but feeling a bit more at peace with himself.

Only that night he came home and the good feeling didn’t last very long. Maybe half an hour of contentment before Xabi walked through the door with a perfect specimen of female on his arm. Tall, brunette, tan, and a bone structure that could kill. Steven watched the debonair way Xabi caressed her waist- with the unconscious and gentleman-like affection he had been bred to express whether or not he cared for the woman or not. The woman was staring adoringly at him- probably not believing her luck at having been invited home by such a great guy. It made Steven sick to watch.

He locked himself up in his room- trying not to think about which he was more upset about. The fact that Xabi was using his charm to deceive the woman into bed by silently promising her something more with the tenderness that didn’t exactly reach his cold heart or the fact that he wanted to be on the receiving end of one of those deceptive but enticing looks as Xabi directed _him_ back to his room.

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It would be misleading to go on and on about Steven’s awakening feelings and desires and mention nothing of Xabi’s. This is not some kind of one sided attraction. Steven had Xabi hooked from that first night in the alley when there had been blood on his face and passion in his eyes. The younger man wanted him- although it’s unclear if this want stems from the simple longing to be him.

There are things about Steven’s character which Xabi envies more than he’s ever felt anything before. Steven is solid. He’s unmovable and unchanging without his expressed desire to move or change himself. He’s open and bleeds out the same air he breathes- soaking the atmosphere with the whirlwind of everything going on behind his cool exterior. He’s his own man and will quite literally beat anyone who challenges this freedom with his bare hands until there is no longer any doubts about how who he is being is exactly who he wants to be.

Xabi wants these things more than he wants to excel in school and work- more than he wants to make his mother proud and see his brothers again. He wants so much he can barely process the thoughts as anything other than vague, blurred colors and light headedness on improper occasions.

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There was no satisfaction in the woman Xabi brought home that night. After the deed was over and done with- she easily fell asleep on his chest- content and happy with the outcome of her night. And he. Well. He just felt suffocated. His room which was normally the perfect temperature was blazing. Her long hair was sticking to his skin uncomfortably and he felt like he couldn’t breathe with her so close.

He laid perfectly still in bed, unable to sleep or concentrate on anything other than how much he wanted to push her away and escape. He’d get out of bed. He’d leave the room completely. If she woke up, he would ignore her confused questioning- asking him what was going on or what was wrong. He would go to the living room- a nice wide, open room that would help cool down his burning body. He would pace- relaxing from the slight breeze of the window Steven always left open.

Steven. He’d not have bothered getting dressed. If Steven would have come out of his room- he would have seen him just as he was- naked and agitated. Wild and unpredictable. Their eyes would have meet and… and…

But Steven didn’t come out of his room- disturbed by the constant thudding of Xabi’s pacing because Xabi wasn’t pacing. He didn’t go to the living room at all. He stayed in bed- burning up and tense- in the arms of a woman he regretted having even gotten to know.

In the morning he made her breakfast with a stiff smile he blamed on a bad night’s rest. He shooed her away in the most courteous way he knew and refused to meet Steven’s eyes for the rest of the morning.

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“Loving you is like getting hit by a freight train with every breath or being shite on by a three hundred kilo orangutan,” Steven tells him after their first night together, holding the younger man close despite the distance that is always keeping them apart. And of course they end up sleeping together. Because as much as Steven might have wished to avoid the rejection he knew he would find in the other man’s empty embraces- he’s never been good at denying himself what he wants and what is available for the taking.

Xabi doesn’t pretend to be asleep- his eyes are wide open and his breathing is anything but regular. Still though, he’s facing the opposite direction (towards the wall and not the window, he leaves the window for dreamers like Steven and instead takes the solidarity of dry wall for himself) and does not move a single muscle. He keeps himself tense, like he’s trying to retract all his bones and fold himself into something so small it can slip out of Steven’s grasp unnoticed and never return. He stays like this long after he hears the Englishman sigh, place a kiss on his cramping neck, and settle into his own slumber.

Xabi hadn’t been aware that any of this had anything to do with that alien concept of love. He goes to sleep with an odd feeling that in this vacation from himself he has made a terrible mistake.

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Xabi sleeps with Steven because he doesn’t realize the other man is in love with him. He thinks that when Steven corners him in the kitchen at four a.m. (while he was working on a huge presentation for work and simultaneously writing his midterm paper for class the next day and far too stressed to even breathe properly [although still very well kept with only the slightest bit of stubble on his chin]) that it’s Steven’s way of telling him to get a life. He thinks Steven is trying to get him to be more laid back- like himself. Love is the farthest thing from his mind- he thinks it’s just supposed to be a much needed dose of fun.

He responds to Steven’s sleepy but passionate advances eagerly. He understands that Steven had been asleep and that all of his rustling about must have woken the other man up. He was going to apologize but his eyes had been so dark and his body so close that Xabi found that he hadn’t been able to say a single word. (The only thing he would say for the rest of the night would be an incomprehensible string of joder’s and yes’s and Steven’s name- which is incredible since no one has ever been able to steal his composure so completely - to the point that he loses his words.)

Xabi was a serious man with serious responsibilities. He was the head of his class and had an internship at a very respected corporation in the city. He was also a teacher’s aide to one of the most strict and demanding professors in the entire University. He had all this on his plate along with family obligations- black tie events he needed to attend as the only representative of his prestigious family in England. He rarely had a moment to himself and wouldn’t know what to do with one anyways.

And yet he would have done whatever Steven had asked of him- provided that he actually did ask. Xabi was not the type of man to go about throwing himself in unnecessary situations.

See, just as easily as Xabi could find himself in bed with Steven, he could just as easily never touch him- except for the most innocent of passings whilst confined in the same apartment- ever again. To him, sex was just another necessary social construction where it was expected that he take part. Sure, he had the feelings and longings just as everyone else, but it was the idea that even his sexual undertakings were just another thing being judged and surmised upon by the world at large- like the rest of his carefully manufactured life- that made him want to spare Steven from it all.

Steven, to him, was like fresh air. He was everything that he longed to be but wasn’t. When his life was feeling stale and yeastless, Steven would remind him that there actually was something stirring inside that chest of his and that one day it might emerge and he might experience happiness and emotions like they’re meant to be enjoyed. Fully and completely. A full body effort and with someone at his side to share the experience with. But that’s a bit too sentimental and he could never admit to having such desires.

So when Steven huskily whispers, “Let me fuck you” and lifts him onto the counter, he agrees and thinks that’s that.

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Steven doesn’t see Xabi after their night together in weeks. He knows his roommate has a busy schedule- it was hard to ignore the ever constant presence of his daily planner- filled with line upon line of things that needed to be done. But he’s also not stupid. He knows when he’s being ignored and it fucking hurts. Even if he knew better than to expect anything else, it doesn’t stop the rejection from cutting just as deep.

It’s at the end of these few weeks of non-consensual solitude that Steven finds out about Xabi’s family.

When he opened the door, he was confused, thinking Xabi must have lost his key or something because why else would he be knocking? But then he realized after a moment that the face wasn’t quite right. A bit older, hair a tad longer and lighter in color. Taller. The differences are subtle but they’re still there. Mikel isn’t quite as attractive, something in the tired lines on his face that make him look a bit sad inside. Like he’d stopped taking care of himself a while ago- like he simply stopped trying.

Steven didn’t know about Mikel until Mikel was standing on the other side of his door. His accent thicker, explaining that he was Xabi’s brother and he was looking for him- it was important. The family resemblance being unmistakable, Steven had no choice but to let the other man in, apologizing that he wasn’t home.

“’ave you tried ‘is cell?” he asked, awkwardly standing against the door after shutting it behind the other man. He knew Xabi had a family. Of course he did. After all, he knew it was because of his family that he was always leaving the house in suits and tuxedos to go rub elbows with the crop of the town. ( _God_ , he looked good in a tux.)But other than that, he knew nothing. The other man had always remained silent on the subject and he had been too distracted by his pining to pry.

“I do not have the number,” Mikel admitted, looking wary. Like he was worried Steven might ask how he didn’t even have the phone number of his own brother yet knew where he lived. But Steven didn’t ask anything, just grabbed his own cell from his pocket and dialed the familiar number, wary himself if Xabi would even pick up for him.

But he did, sounding distant and as far away as ever through the small speaker of the telephone. “Steven…”

“’ey Xabi. Look, someone’s come by the apartment lookin’ fer ya,” Steven says getting straight to the point before the conversation can have a chance to stray into any other channel. He speaks with a confidence he certainly does not feel, pretending to size Mikel up, trying to figure out what it was about Xabi that made him feel so fucking inadequate and weak. Even just talking on the phone and he felt like a mess of the man he once was. It was terrifying and yet. He wouldn’t mind feeling so helpless every day of every moment for the rest of his life if only he knew that he could make Xabi feel the same. (So pathetic…)

“I’m not expecting anyone,” Xabi answers after a long pause, clearly having assumed the next time they spoke would be more about what had happened between them and less of mere roommate courtesy.

“Says ‘e’s yer brother.” The look on Mikel’s face as he says the words speaks volumes of a story that Steven never knew existed. Xabi says little else, keeping his calm façade over the phone, saying he would be home soon and then hanging up.

When he gets home he asks to see Mikel in his room and disappears behind the door before anything else can be said. There are no pleasantries, hugs, or even shocked expressions. It’s professional to the point of pain. It’s no way to behave in a family.

Even if Steven wanted to listen in, it would be impossible. He often mused that if it wasn’t for his accent, he would forget completely that Xabi was Spanish. The only time he heard the other man use his native tongue was in moments of extreme passion (of which there were far too few: overheard once through his thin bedroom wall and then once more moaned into his own mouth).

So when Steven presses his ear against the wooden door after a few minutes, the words being spoken on the other side are as unfamiliar as anything else. When the two men emerge a little while later, the only thing he learns is that Xabi will be leaving for a while and doesn’t quite know why. Doesn’t feel as though he has the right to ask either of them and can do nothing but watch as this strange parody of the man he loves- a brother! who knew?- lead him away, back to Spain.

He can’t help but feel like being shite on by a three hundred kilo orangutan all over again.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He doesn’t mean to, but Steven begins to count the hours that pass since Xabi has been gone. It’s the most pitiful he has ever felt in his life. He can barely focus on anything else in the first few days but the fact that something is missing from the apartment. No constant brewing of fresh coffee at all hours of the day, no sporadic clicking of a key board that used to haunt his sleep, no perfectly organized medicine cabinet. There was no Xabi and the missing presence of the other man was so active on his mind that it was exhausting. A deep- straight to the marrow of his bones- exhaustion.

But the thing about Steven is that he is not one for pining. He does not sit back and allow his misery to rule him. He gets angry. He goes out. He gets pissed out of his mind, arrested once, fired (almost) twice, and brings home someone new every night his roommate is gone. (Off to God knows where. His pride keeps him from calling to inquire like the lovesick fool he is. He fucks each person in Xabi’s bed instead of his own- like his own kind of personal justice.)

Then one day- sent home from work early (possibly forever, depending on how well his charm would work in the morning) for decking a co-worker (Manc scum deserved it)- too distracted by his swollen cheek to anticipate the emptiness of the apartment- was shocked to find that it wasn’t empty at all.

He almost didn’t recognize the man sitting on their couch. It wasn’t that he looked much different- it was more his demeanor that was so off. He was sitting slouched, legs spread apart, holding a beer on his knee, staring into the opposite wall like it would reveal the mysteries of the Universe to him if he was quiet enough. His hair was a tousled mess- black suit wrinkled and unbuttoned. Logically Steven knew that it was Xabi right in front of him but at the same time it was not the perfectly put together Xabi that he knew- the only side of the man he had been lead to believe existed.

“Alright?” he asked, not knowing what else he could say under the circumstance. Xabi’s head turned from the wall to him, a slow and confused expression on his face, as if he hadn’t heard him just walk through the door and was pondering how he had made it inside the apartment without him noticing.

“No.” It’s a simple reply, short and accented. His eyes look red, as if he’d spent the last few hours crying. Steven knew for a fact that Xabi could get by on little to no sleep for weeks without looking nearly half as weary. His heart ached.

“What’s ‘appened? Where’s yer brother?”

“En España.”

“Why’d you go?”

“Mi madre mató,” Xabi answers in Spanish, looking lost and almost childlike. But Steven doesn’t understand Spanish and doesn’t know how to help.

“Why’d you come back?”

“My mother died.”

_Oh_.

Steven’s never been good with emotions. Granted, he’s always been better than Xabi by sheer default of actually having them, but he’s never known how to deal well with the emotional needs of others. The man sitting on his couch was a silent wreck but he didn’t know what it would take to make it better. He didn’t know what words, what kind of touch, what chivalrous acts one was supposed to perform in circumstances like these.

So he sat down, took a swig of the other man’s beer, and accompanied him in the unmovable silence he had found him in.

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The next few days that follow are quiet ones. Xabi- whose schedule was usually busier than a smarmy, campaigning politician- stayed home for the first time since Steven had known him. He did nothing but move from room to room- face pensive and troubled. He didn’t even answer his phone (a duty Steven took upon himself- explaining that there had been a death in the family and that Xabi would be needing extensions on that paper, logistics report, class evaluations, whatever obligations that had made up his life before the news had come from Spain.)

Seeing him like that frustrated Steven to no end. He wanted desperately to help but didn’t even know where to begin. His inadequacies teased him. He was in love, was he not? If he was so in love, why couldn’t he do anything to soothe the person he was supposed to be in love with? Normally these feelings of anger at himself would lead him to the nearest bar but he feared leaving the mourning man by himself. So instead he sat in the kitchen watching the lethargic movements of his roommate around the apartment, stewing, until he finally snapped.

Xabi, who had not eaten all day, had accepted a cup of tea late in the evening as his only nourishment. No sooner had Steven placed the steaming mug in his hands did said cup slip right through his fingers and shatter on the floor- most of the contents spilling and burning his legs on the way down. But as this happened, Xabi only stared down with a slightly puzzled expression- like he wasn’t sure what had just occurred.

“Oh for fucks sake!” Steven had shouted, instantly crouching down wipe down the other man’s legs and inspect the bright red flesh left behind. “What the fuck is wrong with you? You can't-! You can't fucking be this helpless all the fucking time!” He angrily threw a large piece of ceramic against the wall, shattering it further, staring at Xabi with all the turmoil and fear he felt for him swirling around in his eyes. Xabi leaned forward and kissed him. He didn't know what else to do.

They had sex that night. It’s strange though, quiet and solemn. Their movements were sensual and filled with an odd sadness that seems to fill the air- inescapable- infecting their lungs. It feels like someone had ripped a hole in the fabric of time, pulled back the curtain and ushered them inside. The experience was otherworldly. And when Xabi came, there was a panic in his eyes that seemed to take over his entire being.

A desperation.

Afterward, he clung to Steven like he was the only thing that could quell his inner sadness. He held on to Steven like he was the only thing that made sense in the world anymore. And Steven didn’t hold him back although he’s finally receiving the only thing he’s ever wanted from the other man. Can’t hold him back. Too conscious of the fact that a woman had to die to bring them to this point. (For the next few weeks he’d obsess over washing his hands, never being able to quite get rid of the feeling that he’s dirtied them beyond cleaning with one simple act of love.)

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In bed one night Xabi had explained how he had left home and come to England as a teenager. How it had felt like he was being banished from the family because his mother couldn’t see him without also seeing his dead father in his place. How he thought that if he proved himself, become the man she had always wanted him to become (became perfect) he would regain his place in their home.

“It’s stupid, I know. But this is what I believed and I wanted it so badly I forced myself to become…” his face had scrunched up, either in disgust with himself or searching for the right word. Steven had kissed him before he could be sure whichever one it was. (Whispered, “I love who you are. Yer can’t change that, even if you try.”)

But it was clear that whatever domestic bliss they had created for each other was going to be short lived. From the very beginning it felt like they were on borrowed time.

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It may be important to note that this is not a love story. This is a story of two men and how their lives have managed to intersect. The story does not owe it to the reader to gift wrap them with a happy ending of marital bliss. In fact, nothing like this occurs between out two protagonists. To call this story a love story would be limiting- it would confine these men and their lives into simplistic boxes that simply don't do them justice.

They don't end up together. Xabi finishes school and moves back to Spain like he was always meant to do. He doesn't, however, go back to San Sebastian or even Barcelona (where his father's legacy was headquartered). He moves to Madrid and slowly eases himself back into Spain and his family- his brothers.

He doesn't know how to interact with them at first. The funeral was a disaster. He did everything he was supposed to do- everything that was expected of him. He wore a solemn face and stood straight in front of the coffin by his siblings side. Strong a stoic but with a sad compassion readable in his eyes. It was the perfect act. People were moved by the sight of him. But not his brothers.

Jonxtu asked him what was wrong with him. Didn't he have a heart at all? Wasn't he human like the rest of them? Mikel tried to stop their youngest brother but grief didn't afford him the strength. Anger at Xabi's demeanor made him not want to have the strength. Both brothers were suffering. True suffering. Their emotions were real. Nothing was a show for them.

Xabi didn't cry the entire trip. He couldn't comprehend how his brothers could do so, so freely. He did cry, however, coming home. Walking through the familiar apartment door and seeing the apartment that he and Steven had shared for so long-empty of the other man. He cried, falling onto his knees, hysterically clawing at his perfectly pressed suit and the carpeted floor. By the time Steven came home and found him there, he was done with tears but knew he would not be staying in Liverpool for much longer.

When he leaves for good he tries to say goodbye. Crawls into bed where Steven pretends to be sleeping and hovers over him, waiting for some kind of response. But all Steven is capable of doing is keeping his eyes squeezed shut, like he was trying to keep all the hurt and betrayal within himself with the simple act. Xabi kisses him anyways- something like their first kiss back in that dingy alley way that had started it all so long before. He kisses him like that and when Steven still refuses to look at him he gets up and leaves.

He goes back to Spain and as soon as the door shuts behind him, Steven realizes this is the first time he hasn’t been kicked out of his home. This is the first time things had worked out for him and that he was the one who was being left behind instead. It is the first time Steven feels like a real adult and doesn’t go out to fuck and fight his pain away. He stays in. He thinks things through. Tries to cope. Tries to heal. It’s progress.

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Back in Spain Xabi starts over. In the aftermath of his mother’s death, he had changed. It was great, in some ways. All the weight and expectations of the world that he had always carried on his shoulders seemed to disappear. He wasn’t happy still, but there was something to his soft smiles that seemed more genuine than before. It seemed like he could actually get there with enough time. That one day he might actually be truly happy. Slowly, he learns how to be a real person. It takes a lot of trial and error. A lot of realizing that you can make everyone like you- but chances are the trade off will be your own emotional well being. He thinks about Steven and how his feelings were always so genuine and effortless. He thinks about Steven and tries to become a better person.

After a few months in Madrid he gets into an argument with a guy at a bar and it becomes very clear that this guy doesn't care for him when he takes the first swing. Xabi wears the bruise into work the next day with a type of childish pride- feeling as though he'd made some kind of progress as well.

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Steven and Xabi never see each other again.

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Or maybe they do. One day, years later. Steven's in London on business (settled in that big important job he'd always been too afraid to try and get before when he was self medicating with booze and fights) and he's looking smart in a black jacket in the middle of a winter flurry. He's walking down the busy streets, hands in his pockets to protect them from the freezing weather, only thinking about how stupid he was for forgetting his gloves back on the train. And then he would look up and Xabi would be peering into a shop window in front of him as if the cold and snow accumulating on his shoulders weren't bothering him. Looking so serene and at peace that it feels as though the temperature actually goes up a few degrees on the cold, cold street.

And then he turns and sees Steven and smiles- genuinely- like he'd known they'd be running into each other soon. Steven never quite makes it to his meeting but it's okay. Or maybe it isn't but it feels okay and neither of them feels the need to worry about it too much. It's like a second chance and maybe it won't be a happily ever after or an ever after at all but it feels good.

They end up at Steven's hotel, in bed with the covers pushed down and rapidly cooling sweat giving them goosebumps. (“ _Escalofríos_ ,” Xabi mumbles, running his fingers down Steven's arm and causing him to shudder even more.) Steven would look down at the other man and ask, “Are ye happy?”

And Xabi would shrug and look back at Steven in a way that would answer for him.

“Yes.”


End file.
